The Alamo is excited to announce the hiring of a new Director of Living History, Angela Wolfgram. Angela brings to the Alamo an extensive amount of experience in creating and researching museum exhibitions.
As Director of Living History, Angela will lead day-to-day operations for the living history department, which includes daily demonstrations in the Living History Encampment in the Alamo Gardens. These demonstrations are viewed by over 1.5 million visitors annually and include reenactments such as firing demonstrations, fire starting, textiles, leather working and more.
Angela spent eight years working for the Indiana Historical Society, where she researched and designed several successful exhibits. Needless to say, San Antonio differs greatly from the Midwest.
“You can easily see how there are so many different influences in San Antonio,” Angela says. “For example, the food ways that I have experienced here are unlike anything that we had in the Midwest. I love the San Antonio River and how there are so many nearby sites to explore.”
Having spent so much time working at traditional museums, Angela sees a unique opportunity with the Alamo when it comes to creating new exhibits.
“To have this sort of centralized location in downtown San Antonio is different and remarkable,” she says. “I have always been drawn to historic sites. There is a magic in historic sites that museums can try to draw from when they have the objects of history and the narratives of history but there is something very magical, you could say, about a historic site and the tie between place and narrative,” Angela added.
Angela, who received her B.A. in History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and her M.A. in Public/Applied History at the Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, is fascinated by regional history.
“I think it is important to understand different regional history. I am coming from a strong mid-western foundation and I believe I have a good sense of the historical narratives for that area,” Angela professes. “With the Alamo, I am drawn to all the different groups that have laid claim to this land and the intersection of all those different histories.”
The change in climate between Indiana and San Antonio has been dramatic, something Angela says she enjoys since South Texas’s warmer weather makes outdoor living and experiences accessible year round.
